[Bengaluru, 12/14/22] In my 20’s and 30’s, I routinely read at least two newspapers a day, the Philadelphia Inquirer and Daily News, plus, often, the New York Times and New York Post. I read those because they were available where I lived. With the internet, most of us no longer get our news on paper, so many newspapers have died, with even the largest ones trimming their staff. Who cares, you say, since all they purvey is fake news?
This was wonderful, Linh. Your writing makes me feel like I am walking alongside you, enjoying the atmosphere of normalcy (whatever that is) while feeling underfoot the ominous thrumming of the soon-to-come.
I was joyed (but not "over"joyed - must be careful) to see you re-use "chest peace" - that's too good to ignore. I was going to suggest that perhaps it was a well-wishing to people who got clot-shot.
Beauty and Squalor are regulars on your beat. When you jumped the rails and wrote about the boy’s knowledge of crowded sidewalks, you transported me out of my usual state of mind. I feel hopeful, but I don’t understand why.
Beautiful, as always. I'm an Indian-origin American, and the way you write about India makes me feel like I'm right there with you, bathing in all the sounds and smells and color of the place.
Ah the blessed normalcy of flopping on the couch and reading Linh's latest missive - our man in India. I am as exhausted as I have ever been in my life. I say this simply because it is true and not to elicit sympathy or offers of help - my partner and friend of twenty years died suddenly but not surprisingly almost two weeks ago, with a divinely peaceful look on his face (he did not routinely look peaceful) and in his sleep, sleeping off a night of sitting up and coaching numerous teams at the World Cup. I am exhausted, not from grief, but the effort of doing all the things that need to be done in the wake of a death - as in a ship cutting through the waves and leaving a large, white wave behind. The shock of seeing our small room filll up with sensitive and very simpatico strangers doing what they could to revive him and then to complete the official procedure for a sudden and unexpected death which was surprisingly comforting. Five hours later he was transported off to the coroners office so they could try and determine the cause of death. What that was remains to be seen as their office is currently overwhelmed with sudden and unexpected deaths. At least in my partner's death I can rest assured it had nothing to do with either Covid or the covid vaccine as I had stood like a dog at the door, growling at anyone who tried to suggest he should be vaccinated, but few did. So this can stand as a reminder that people have always died suddenly and unexpectedly, just not so many. Everyone I talk to in this peaceful and green backwater agrees we are surrounded Victoria, Australia. Meanwhile I brace myself for a visit of over 30 of his family tomorrow, three sisters staying on, and then the funeral in two days. We have had so many conferences about the form of the funeral, what sort of food to serve at the wake, and on and on. It really makes one long for the 'old days' of the body laid out in the parlour and a simple church funeral and the grave site a few steps away in the churchyard. Any longing for the old days is highly suspect though, you can't take the best and not the rest.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart Linh for your column, it allowed me to think for awhile of a myself as hardly more than a girl living in a share house (former mansion) right across from the green depths of the Gardens in Cape Town - it was never safe to go anywhere after dark in Cape Town and this was while apartheid was in full swing. There was no such thing as a 'good' and safe area after dark, and my parents-in-law lived in one of the best and safest of suburbs. And I distinctly remember the people from the ashram I was visiting in Delhi tell the taxi driver who was transporting us somewhere that they had taken his name and license number and if anything happened to us they would unleash the hounds of hell on him (well, they didn't say that exactly). We are still and always on a darkling plain with the ignorant armies sharpening their bayonets - but hey! we are alive and good wishes of the season are still a joy for me, a time when everyone feels able to relax and enjoy. Or so it seems. I even really love Felice Navidad for some reason. Sorry. Or Ssstoch as the ladies in the CapeTown flower market used to say, Shame!
Oh I wish I could get milk like that. In Oregon, we have to pretend to buy a percentage of the cow to get raw milk, lest the seller have an armed SWAT team descend on them. I once drove to a store in Washington that was listed on Weston Price to get some, and when I got there there it was no where to be found. The clerk said "oh yeah, we stopped carrying it because of what happened"- whatever the hell that was supposed to refer to.
Pasteurization's sole purpose is to mitigate filthy conditions, animal abuse, and sketchy supply chains. Cleanly harvested raw milk is perfectly safe. I've read in parts of Europe, you can buy it out of vending machines.
The perfect food, man can live on raw cows milk alone. Nowdays, more and more milk is ultra pasteurized. It doesn't even have to be refrigerated. It only takes up expensive real estate in the cooler so as not to freak people out, lest they catch on to what an abomination they are buying.
"In Namibia, though, I met an Angolan who went on at length about how his people, Nigerians and Zimbabweans had the biggest dicks on earth. He must have been a Fascist."
Hi Linh, wonderful piece. I liked the description of the 13 year old western kid trying to process Bangkok with no wheeled steel cage to mediate. My brother and sis in law are taking their daughters to Thailand this month. My neices have never been in a normal city like Bangkok before, and all they know about Thailand comes from that obscene Hangover 2 movie. I imagine they will have thoughts like the 13 year old youth in your text. Take care and good luck with getting your new passport and visa. See you soon in Việt Nam miền Tây.
Ah, I forgot. I would like to publish if possible a short poem or travel text by you, in a very small literary multilingual magazine I publish, "Geist". The magazine is published in an old style print version. The text can be both in Vietnamese and/or English (published in both languages), or only English. Preferably original and short. Pleas let me know and I will send you more details. Merci!
I have to say I am surprised to see so many pictures of Christian imagery in India (even if with an Indian twist), I thought only a small minority practiced Catholicism, maybe in Goa.
On a separate note, dear Mr. Dihn, thank you for your work, and Merry Christmas! Or, Frohe Weihnachten! https://youtu.be/_DfSDmvrS4Y
Some basketball related news from the Home Front. The Phoenix Suns upgraded from a Multi-Millionaire Jew to a Billionaire Jew when Mat Ishbia bought controlling interest in the team.
Also, Brittney Griner is back with the hometown Mercury & plans to play this year. In the greatest trade in WNBA history, the Russians sent Griner & two 1st round draft picks to the Americans for Viktor Bout and a terrorist to be named later.
While reading one of your columns the other day, as if on cue, "A Passage to India" came on Turner Classic Movies. Oh, to see a picture of you riding an elephant ! We would expand it of course, then hang it from City Hall in downtown Philly, with you flipping them off from your high perch on the magnificent beast.
Same ol', same ol' here in U$rael....caught our buddy Blitzer the other day on CNN talking to some flunky from the Empire, who promised support for Ukraine until Putin is defeated. The beady-eyed Blitzer nodding in approval.
Wait until Ron DeFascist takes over...then we're really fucked.
Hi everyone,
Here's a photo of "Chest Peace":
https://linhdinhphotos.blogspot.com/2022/12/green-chicken-and-chest-peace-on-12-13.html
Linh
This was wonderful, Linh. Your writing makes me feel like I am walking alongside you, enjoying the atmosphere of normalcy (whatever that is) while feeling underfoot the ominous thrumming of the soon-to-come.
I was joyed (but not "over"joyed - must be careful) to see you re-use "chest peace" - that's too good to ignore. I was going to suggest that perhaps it was a well-wishing to people who got clot-shot.
Beauty and Squalor are regulars on your beat. When you jumped the rails and wrote about the boy’s knowledge of crowded sidewalks, you transported me out of my usual state of mind. I feel hopeful, but I don’t understand why.
Beautiful, as always. I'm an Indian-origin American, and the way you write about India makes me feel like I'm right there with you, bathing in all the sounds and smells and color of the place.
Ah the blessed normalcy of flopping on the couch and reading Linh's latest missive - our man in India. I am as exhausted as I have ever been in my life. I say this simply because it is true and not to elicit sympathy or offers of help - my partner and friend of twenty years died suddenly but not surprisingly almost two weeks ago, with a divinely peaceful look on his face (he did not routinely look peaceful) and in his sleep, sleeping off a night of sitting up and coaching numerous teams at the World Cup. I am exhausted, not from grief, but the effort of doing all the things that need to be done in the wake of a death - as in a ship cutting through the waves and leaving a large, white wave behind. The shock of seeing our small room filll up with sensitive and very simpatico strangers doing what they could to revive him and then to complete the official procedure for a sudden and unexpected death which was surprisingly comforting. Five hours later he was transported off to the coroners office so they could try and determine the cause of death. What that was remains to be seen as their office is currently overwhelmed with sudden and unexpected deaths. At least in my partner's death I can rest assured it had nothing to do with either Covid or the covid vaccine as I had stood like a dog at the door, growling at anyone who tried to suggest he should be vaccinated, but few did. So this can stand as a reminder that people have always died suddenly and unexpectedly, just not so many. Everyone I talk to in this peaceful and green backwater agrees we are surrounded Victoria, Australia. Meanwhile I brace myself for a visit of over 30 of his family tomorrow, three sisters staying on, and then the funeral in two days. We have had so many conferences about the form of the funeral, what sort of food to serve at the wake, and on and on. It really makes one long for the 'old days' of the body laid out in the parlour and a simple church funeral and the grave site a few steps away in the churchyard. Any longing for the old days is highly suspect though, you can't take the best and not the rest.
So thank you from the bottom of my heart Linh for your column, it allowed me to think for awhile of a myself as hardly more than a girl living in a share house (former mansion) right across from the green depths of the Gardens in Cape Town - it was never safe to go anywhere after dark in Cape Town and this was while apartheid was in full swing. There was no such thing as a 'good' and safe area after dark, and my parents-in-law lived in one of the best and safest of suburbs. And I distinctly remember the people from the ashram I was visiting in Delhi tell the taxi driver who was transporting us somewhere that they had taken his name and license number and if anything happened to us they would unleash the hounds of hell on him (well, they didn't say that exactly). We are still and always on a darkling plain with the ignorant armies sharpening their bayonets - but hey! we are alive and good wishes of the season are still a joy for me, a time when everyone feels able to relax and enjoy. Or so it seems. I even really love Felice Navidad for some reason. Sorry. Or Ssstoch as the ladies in the CapeTown flower market used to say, Shame!
Oh I wish I could get milk like that. In Oregon, we have to pretend to buy a percentage of the cow to get raw milk, lest the seller have an armed SWAT team descend on them. I once drove to a store in Washington that was listed on Weston Price to get some, and when I got there there it was no where to be found. The clerk said "oh yeah, we stopped carrying it because of what happened"- whatever the hell that was supposed to refer to.
Pasteurization's sole purpose is to mitigate filthy conditions, animal abuse, and sketchy supply chains. Cleanly harvested raw milk is perfectly safe. I've read in parts of Europe, you can buy it out of vending machines.
The perfect food, man can live on raw cows milk alone. Nowdays, more and more milk is ultra pasteurized. It doesn't even have to be refrigerated. It only takes up expensive real estate in the cooler so as not to freak people out, lest they catch on to what an abomination they are buying.
Hey Linh, when are you returning to West Vietnam?
"In Namibia, though, I met an Angolan who went on at length about how his people, Nigerians and Zimbabweans had the biggest dicks on earth. He must have been a Fascist."
I effin' wet my unders reading that!!
Hi Linh, wonderful piece. I liked the description of the 13 year old western kid trying to process Bangkok with no wheeled steel cage to mediate. My brother and sis in law are taking their daughters to Thailand this month. My neices have never been in a normal city like Bangkok before, and all they know about Thailand comes from that obscene Hangover 2 movie. I imagine they will have thoughts like the 13 year old youth in your text. Take care and good luck with getting your new passport and visa. See you soon in Việt Nam miền Tây.
Thank you Linh - for a dose of sanity.
Ah, I forgot. I would like to publish if possible a short poem or travel text by you, in a very small literary multilingual magazine I publish, "Geist". The magazine is published in an old style print version. The text can be both in Vietnamese and/or English (published in both languages), or only English. Preferably original and short. Pleas let me know and I will send you more details. Merci!
I have to say I am surprised to see so many pictures of Christian imagery in India (even if with an Indian twist), I thought only a small minority practiced Catholicism, maybe in Goa.
On a separate note, dear Mr. Dihn, thank you for your work, and Merry Christmas! Or, Frohe Weihnachten! https://youtu.be/_DfSDmvrS4Y
Linh
Some basketball related news from the Home Front. The Phoenix Suns upgraded from a Multi-Millionaire Jew to a Billionaire Jew when Mat Ishbia bought controlling interest in the team.
Also, Brittney Griner is back with the hometown Mercury & plans to play this year. In the greatest trade in WNBA history, the Russians sent Griner & two 1st round draft picks to the Americans for Viktor Bout and a terrorist to be named later.
Bill
Do Indians care about soccer? I think they are more into cricket, right? Congratulations to Argentina, anyway.
this a wonderful read cheerfully eccentric
It's strange to see cows wandering in a city, but that milk seems to taste good. I don't know where to get non-pasteurized milk, even in Europe.
p.s. Your pictures are getting better and better.
Linh
While reading one of your columns the other day, as if on cue, "A Passage to India" came on Turner Classic Movies. Oh, to see a picture of you riding an elephant ! We would expand it of course, then hang it from City Hall in downtown Philly, with you flipping them off from your high perch on the magnificent beast.
Same ol', same ol' here in U$rael....caught our buddy Blitzer the other day on CNN talking to some flunky from the Empire, who promised support for Ukraine until Putin is defeated. The beady-eyed Blitzer nodding in approval.
Wait until Ron DeFascist takes over...then we're really fucked.
Bill